


Home Again

by robertstanion



Series: PEIPHQ Shenanigans [26]
Category: Black Friday - Team StarKid
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Tears, adoption fic, johns insecurities, mentions of past neglect, the physicist cant do physics, this is the most research ive ever done for a fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:02:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25038184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robertstanion/pseuds/robertstanion
Summary: When John suggests adopting a kid, Xander is more than happy to oblige. However, with kids, comes homework, and when the physicist gets stressed over physics, what can be done?
Relationships: Xander Lee/John McNamara
Series: PEIPHQ Shenanigans [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1764349
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	Home Again

**Author's Note:**

> TWS:  
> Mentions of past child neglect, mentions of death

“Right, come on, _you_ wanna talk.” Xander said, folding his arms, looking out at the clearly zoned out general before him. John put his head in hands, rubbing them over his face, choosing to ignore Xander. He sighed. “John!”

“Hmm?” He asked, looking up, his hand over the scar over his right eye. Xander bit the inside of his lip and slid into the seat beside him.

“Sweetheart, what’s on your mind?” He asked, taking John’s hand, moving it away from his eye, only for John’s locks of golden hair to replace it. Xander tilted his head gently, cupping John’s cheek. Ever since coming back from The Black and White, John never showed the right side of his face. His hair was never in a professional ponytail, instead, he deliberately left strands of hair to cover the pink scar that went from the top of his right eyebrow down to his upper lip. John hated the thing; Xander was yet to see it.

“It doesn’t matter.” John mumbled, moving Xander’s hand off his cheek.

“Something is bothering you, and it has been all day. You’ve been like this since we got to work this morning.” He said, looking him in the eye. He took John’s hands. “Come on, you can tell me anything and I’ll listen. It’s why we got married, after all.”

“Just so you can listen to your general outside of work?” He asked, raising an eyebrow, which lead to Xander’s cheeks glowing slightly more.

“It’s not like that….” Xander said, looking down, enabling John to move away.

“Exactly.” John said, moving away from Xander. “I don’t wanna talk about why I’m like…this.”

“John,” Xander said, immediately looking back up. “Come on, you can tell me anything.”

“I _know_ I can but…this is just…different.”

“Different _how?”_ Xander questioned, and John swallowed, taking a breath. He looked up to Xander and waited a while before Xander nodded, encouraging him to confess.

“I…..I’ve been thinking….I’ve been thinking about…. _kids_ …” He admitted, not waiting for Xander’s reaction.

“Children?” Xander was shocked. John had made it explicitly clear at the start of their relationship his opinion on furthering his family, which would mean to continue his side of, what John claimed to be, ‘his horrific bloodline.’ The statement had certainly left Xander stunned and wide eyed for a brief amount of seconds before the conversation continued. “But…you’ve never-“

“Hartford called me dad as a joke last week.” John confessed, taking another deep breath. “She meant it as a joke, as did Slate when he said it. But it’s been toying with my mind ever since.”

The room was quiet, _too_ quiet, and the silence centred John’s voice. Xander shifted to look at his husband better, watching the steady rise and fall of his husband’s shoulders.

“My parents always said I’d be a pathetic excuse of a father. I always believed them. I always believed them _until_ last Tuesday. When the two were joking around with each other, they felt it was necessary to address me not as my title, but as the name of a paternal figure. It knocked me off my stool, I guess.”

He was quiet again for a while, and Xander waited. Xander was always patient when it came to John, and he didn’t push him. John had been through a lot in the last couple of weeks, and Xander wasn’t going to be one to rush him to speak about anything, especially considering the Black and White.

“And I thought about it more. I thought I’d be able to brush it off. It was only a joke, of course it was, but that one particular thought proceeded to crop up in my mind every single time they were around, and I gave myself false hope I’d be a good father.”

“Hey,” Xander said, grabbing his hand again, “if you’re in denial that you may not be a good potential father to someone, I won’t hesitate to list all the qualities about yourself that make that statement false.”

“Xander….we work for the damn military. We could die in the field, and then who’d care for the kid? That’s an immediate no.”

Xander shook his head. “Darling, listen to me.” He said and cupped his cheek. “I’m a theoretical physicist. Yes, in my contract, it _does_ technically list me as a field agent, but the last time I went out on the field was 2015. _You’re_ the field agent, I’m a physicist.” He smiled gently, looking into his eye.

“And?”

“I did a lot of research on adoption prior to this conversation, honey.” He smiled softly, looking into his eye. “I’ve wanted to be a dad for a _while_ , so when I joined PEIP, the first thing I googled was whether you could adopt if you work for the military. You can. We just need to find the right agency if that’s what you want.”

John looked up to Xander. “Are you being serious? We can actually do this?”

He smiled and moved his hand to John’s shoulder. “Why would I lie?” He was met with the muscular arms of the man wrapped tightly around his body. He smiled and hugged John back, kissing his hair. “Why don’t we start looking at potential adoption agencies tonight?”

“I’d like that.” John mumbled, causing Xander to smile wider.

* * *

It took a few months, but they found an agency willing to go ahead with the process with them. John hadn’t stopped grinning when they filled out the potential form, buzzing with excitement. Xander had to anchor him to the couch so he’d remain seated. The doctor’s wrote up their medical reports, which set him on edge, so when the agency asked him about his current injuries, he almost admitted his involvement with a paranormal force. Xander covered it up saying he’d gotten into a pretty bad encounter with a wild wolf, and she didn’t question anything else. John’s shoulder’s dropped with relief.

A month later, and their background and home checks were complete. When they got the call that they were able to proceed to the next stage of adoption, John hugged Xander tighter than ever before, his grin seeping through and into his voice.

The next stage contained a lot of meetings and there was also a lot of evaluating, and by a lot, they meant _a lot._ Half the time, they didn’t have privacy alone, especially during home visits to ensure the home was up to date. Of course, it had to be. The technology in the house consisted of things that Xander had came up with himself, so any computers were essentially the same ones they had at PEIP, just unable to track anyone. Xander had designed those computers when PEIP had had to undergo refurbishments.

Then there was the conversations stage. Instead of doing it in several different sittings, they got everyone in one room, the referees _and_ John and Xander. John had been dreading this stage ever since the beginning of looking for agencies. They sat down with the social worker and went through the basics before they started the conversation.

“Alright, then, Xander.” She smiled politely, looking to Xander. “This stage is compulsory, unfortunately, and if it were up to me, I wouldn’t get my clients to do this part, but it isn’t, so you’re going to need to tell me a little bit about your upbringing, would that be okay?”

Xander nodded and smiled. “Of course,” he said, beginning to speak. “My family weren’t the richest in Hatchetfield, and though we didn’t have a lot of money, we made up for it with our bond. It was just me, my dad and my mom. My mom’s a secretary and my dad worked in a store. Even as a young child, I was exposed to racism. I never encountered racism myself until high school, and I had a lot of friends in grade school, but then, in high school, everything changed. It was hard being one of the only kids of colour there, but I studied hard, did well in my exams, the lot. I graduated and tried to figure out what I wanted to do, and then a job was offered to me where I could be a physicist, and I got the job pretty much immediately.”

He waited for the social worker to take notes, before she smiled and turned to John.

“And what about you, John?” She asked, and John gulped nervously. His hand immediately gripped Xander’s tighter and he became much more tense.

“Well, heh-“ He ran a hand through his hair, clearly trying to avoid the topic. “It’s…it was something alright…” He said, putting out a forced laugh. Xander looked at him.

“It’s okay, Mr McNamara, take as long as you need.”

John looked up to his husband, who encouraged him to speak with a nod. He steadied himself, closing his eyes. “I was told from a very young age I wasn’t planned, and I got bullied for that all throughout school.” He laughed as if it was nothing. “I had a lot of internalised homophobia in school, and even then I had slurs thrown at me. I had no friends at all. They didn’t want to be friends with me. They wanted to be friends with someone normal. Someone who didn’t get beat at home every night for not getting home early. One day it got so bad I just- oh yeah, my parents were homophobic as well, so one day it got so bad, a fight between me and my father, I gave up and came out. He kicked me out the house. I was homeless for two weeks before my ex-general and father figure picked me up off the street, gave me a job at the military and such. Then he died, my mentor then went missing and I was promoted to general without a say in things, and it’s been that way ever since.” He shrugged. “And I assure you when I say I am _nothing_ like my parents. My cousin, not so much, because he’s an asshole cop, but I will literally sacrifice myself for everyone here.” He said and bit his lip. “Especially those two over in the corner.” He said, gesturing to Privates Slate and Hartford.

The social worker nodded as Hartford spoke up, grinning. “Damn, John! And you’re _still_ the most badass General I ever saw.”

“It’s “I’ve ever seen, Louisiana.” John rolled his eyes, leaning against Xander, only now noticing the tears in his eyes.

“To you it is, but not to me.” She grinned, before going back to annoying Slate.

Xander looked down to John, pressing a kiss on his head. “Hey, I’m proud of you.” He said softly, and John smiled awkwardly.

“Thanks, Zee. But it’s the therapy that got me to talk about it.” He chuckled, but it was clear he was upset.

They waited until the end of the session for the rest of the group to depart from their house before Xander wrapped him in a hug. “One more month to go, babe.”

“One more month.” John repeated, gripping Xander’s shirt like his life depended on it.

* * *

Luckily, with John able to prove himself as a loyal parent even with his childhood trauma, they became approved to be a prospect adopter, meaning they were in the process of finding a kid matched for them. They’d both made it fairly obvious to their social worker that the kind of kid they wanted was one that would be least likely to be adopted, and they were looking for kids of an ethnic background specifically, which had made Xander cry when Xander suggest adopting someone like him into the family. 7 months later, and they’d found not one, but two kids, who were siblings, who fit John and Xander’s descriptions for a family. They were out in Clivesdale, the two of them, a sister and a brother. They were overjoyed when their Adoption Placement Plan was set in place.

They organised a date and booked the day off work so they could drive to Clivesdale with the social worker allocated to them to meet the kids they’d be adopting. John had been buzzing and had had too much coffee that morning, so Xander drove to the centre. When they approached, John stopped bouncing, filled with nerves that even the dumbest of people could recognise when he moved his hair in front of his scar, which had been covered up with makeup ever since the social worker had started this plan.

They parked and headed inside to the meeting room, where two kids were sitting with someone who appeared to be a nurse. John’s eyes widened when he saw them. He gripped Xander’s hand tightly as the door was pushed open, allowing the two men to step inside.

“Good afternoon, Julianna.” The social worker smiled. “This is General McNamara and Xander Lee, who I was telling you about.” She smiled and the nurse, Julianna, smiled brightly.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Alessia, here, has told me a lot about you.” She said, extending a hand, to which John took it, ensuring his hair was tucked neatly into his beret. He’d gone in uniform minus the bulletproof vest to allow himself to look professional, but not intimidating, and that also meant hiding his long hair.

“Yes, thank you, ma’am, we’re here to see the kids?”

“They’re all set. I’ll leave you guys be.” She said, waving goodbye to the kids on the couch before leaving.

“Come with me,” Alessia said, guiding the two men closer towards the young kids. She smiled and motioned for them to take seats. “John, Xander, these are the kids hopefully you’ll be adopting. This is Penny Kiara and that’s Jasper Lucas.”

Xander looked up to the two kids. The younger of the two, Jasper, was cuddled into his big sister’s side. The two looked extremely similar, with the same round faces and the same dark skin. Penny’s eyes were almost a golden shade of hazel, and her pupils were wide with fear. Jasper’s eyes, however, were dark brown, like Xander’s. If you hadn’t known the two weren’t a family, you’d have thought Jasper was Xander’s biological son as they looked nearly identical when it came to looks, aside from age. Xander smiled and looked at the two of them.

“Hi, I’m Xander Lee-McNamara, and this is my husband, General John McNamara-Lee, and we are hopefully going to be your new parents.”

“Are we finally getting out of here?” Penny asked, looking to Alessia with wide eyes, and Alessia smiled and nodded.

“Penny’s nine years old, and Jasper’s six. They’ve been in here for five years after the passing of their mother shortly after Jasper was born.”

“Oh…and their father?”

“He didn’t care about us…not after mom fell pregnant with Jasper…” Penny admitted, her voice small. “He left.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that.” Xander said and Penny shrugged.

“I just remember stayin’ with my nana, who was too old to take care of us, and we got sent to the agency. Nana wouldn’t let me or Jasper get separated from each other, and Jasper’s scared of this place. We just want a home, Mr Xander Lee-McNamara.” She said and bit her lip. “I don’t even remember what a home is like anymore….”

“Well, hopefully, soon, you’ll be able to.” John spoke up, grabbing Xander’s hand. “Maybe me and Zee can change that.” He smiled wide. Xander nodded and Penny’s eyes lit up. She turned back to Alessia.

“I really hope they can adopt me and Jaz.”

“I hope so too, dear.”

* * *

The moment they got the phone call that they could adopt Penny and Jasper as their own kid, John had sped to Xander’s lab with tears in his eyes. The door had clashed against the wall with the force that he’d opened it, and Xander had jumped.

“I’m pretty sure the sign says knock!” He sighed as he turned around to see John standing there, grinning wider than ever before. He blinked and his eyes opened more, hope rising. “Did it-?”

“Yeah!”

“We’re gonna be-?”

“Yeah!” John smiled wide. Xander laughed and held his arms out to his husband, who ran into his arms gladly. Xander pulled him into a tight hug as John buried into Xander’s neck. “We’re gonna be _dads,_ babe!” He laughed, but Xander felt a tear on his neck.

“You’re crying, aren’t you?”

“Most definitely.” John chuckled and held Xander tighter. “They’re ready to come home with us, so I said that we could pick them up after work, is that okay? We have their rooms fully decorated and-“

Xander shut him up with a kiss. “Of course it’s okay.”

* * *

Three years on, and things hadn’t really changed between them. Everything was relatively the same from when they’d first moved in to now. For the kids’ freedom, there weren’t many rules in the “McNamander” household. The only one, for safety reasons, was to stay out of the basement, which had been turned into something to replicate Xander’s lab at PEIP. He had the same dark oak furniture and the same blue LED lava lamps and lights and such, accompanied by a fish tank on top of the old dresser they’d put down so Xander could keep chemicals and such in there. It was for some smaller experiments he’d be able to continue at home instead of having to stay longer hours at PEIP, which worked even more in their favour seeing as they had their two kids now. They’d been in John and Xander’s care for three years now, and the two adults weren’t getting any younger. At the age of 39, they knew each other inside and out, and were starting to learn more about their kids. They trusted the two of them despite their several scars that littered their bodies, including John’s on his face, and it was the perfect family that they could ask for.

Xander had left the two kids to do their homework while he worked, knowing John would be back soon anyway, so he let himself go down to his lab, giving them the same instructions to not follow him down there. He worked for a good few hours just before he heard a soft knock at the door, Xander looked up, goggles on top of his head, his lab coat half hanging off his shoulder. He expected it to be his husband having come home from work, but it wasn’t. Instead, it was their thirteen year old daughter. She was holding something in her arms and had a nervous look on her face. Xander immediately sighed softly. “Penny…” he said, walking over to her, putting his lab coat back over his shoulder. “You know you aren’t allowed down here.”

“I know, but I need to do my homework and dad hasn’t come home yet…”

Xander furrowed his eyebrows and looked at the time on his watch. 9 o’clock in the PM. “Jesus Christ, it’s late…did my phone go off?”

“Uh, yeah, but I didn’t wanna look at it…Jasper looked at it, though.”

Xander took a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose, before he exhaled and looked at his daughter. “Your father will be the death of me.” He smiled softly. “Come on. Let’s call it a night, and I’ll help you with your work,” he said, cleaning up the area as quickly as he could. He set his goggles in the drawer and hung up his lab coat, wrapping an arm around Penny’s shoulder. “What have you gotta do?”

“It’s Physics.”

“Thank fuck! _Finally_ something I might be good at!” The problem was that John seemed to be able to help the kids with their home and school work a lot more than Xander was able to. He didn’t understand the new curriculum, as it had changed massively since he and John were in school. Xander only appeared to be good at what he used to do in school, and _not_ poetry and _certainly_ not the excessive amount of algebra. He always had a go, but proceeded to give up easier than his kids.

“Dad’s gonna kill you if he finds out you swore around me.” Penny smiled as she headed up the stairs.

“Yeah? Well he’s no better than I am.” He chuckled, flicking the lights to the basement off, locking the door directly afterwards. “Is Jasper asleep?”

“Jasper went up a couple hours ago.”

“Okay, good. Has he done his work?”

“He didn’t have any tonight. I checked his planner and everything.”

“Good girl, Pen.” He said and kissed the top of his daughter’s head as they walked through to the kitchen, sitting down at the table. “Right, let’s take a look.”

“Are you sure you’re gonna be able to handle it this time?” Penny asked, grinning up at her father, who shrugged.

“We’ll have to see.”

* * *

An hour later, and they’d gotten pretty much nowhere. Xander was still struggling to wrap his head around the concept of the topic, and Penny was getting more stressed. “When’s dad getting home?! She groaned, throwing her head on the table.

“Hey, don’t do that. I _can_ do it.” Xander said, sitting Penny back up. “Come on, let’s go through it together _one_ more time, and if we can’t do it, I’ll ring dad.” Penny sighed, but nodded anyway.

“Yeah, fine.”

“So you’re doing energy, right?”

“Yes, we’ve been through this.”

“Okay, so…you’ve got a battery.”

“Yep.”

“And that battery is transferred as electrical energy to light energy?”

“Yes.”

“But the excess is…transferred as…..I’m lost.”

Another hand appeared on the sheet in front of them, demonstrating immediately. “The battery is transferred as electrical energy until it passes through the lamp, meaning that energy is now seen as light energy, and that light energy passes through to the surroundings. However, the lamp is, simultaneously, giving off thermal energy which is seen as waste, which is also given off to the surroundings. So if 100 Jules of electrical energy get passed through the lamp, and only 10 Jules come out as light energy, it means that 90 Jules are wasted as thermal energy.” Penny and Xander both turned round to see John smirking. Penny shot up, immediately wrapping her arms around the other soldier, burying into him.

“Thank _fuck_ you’re home…” She said, her voice muffled by the denim of John’s shirt. John hugged her back, shaking her hand.

“Language, Penny.”

“Sorry, but _please_ don’t leave me doing homework with dad again.”

“I won’t, but it is late at night, and you do have school in the morning. Go to bed now, alright?”

“Alright, night dads, I love you.” Penny said as she pulled away.

“Love you too, Pen.” John said as he took his seat at the table beside Xander, smiling at him. “Did Jasper go to bed alright tonight?” He asked, wrapping an arm around Xander, who leaned into him. Xander sighed.

“I was down in the lab finishing shit off for tomorrow. I got stuck doing stupid fucking physics.”

“Says the theoretical physicist in the house.”

“Hey,” Xander said and looked at his husband, “I shall have you know that theoretical physics involves primarily looking at time and space, not fucking _energy stores.”_

“Well, I’m home now, and we have work tomorrow, so, how about we head up to bed and relax, huh, old man?”

“You are older than me by 4 months.”

“We’re the same age.” John smiled, kissing Xander’s head. “And I’m sorry I was home late, Hartford blew up the west wing again.”

“Hartford’s your mentor, honey.”

“Yes, I’m aware.” John rolled his eyes, standing up and taking Xander’s hand. “Come on, let’s head up.”

**Author's Note:**

> me: penny lee-mcnamara/jasper lee-mcnamara for one fic, but if anything happened to them, i would kill everyone in this room and then myself. 
> 
> and also i love my two peip ocs they are endgame. and no, they are best friends because they're both gay.


End file.
